If five years ago you told singer Brian Fair that his band would be in the running for a Grammy Award, sharing the stage with heroes such as Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden, and calling the shots in a deal with Atlantic Records, the lanky, dreadlocked front man for Shadows Fall knows exactly what he would have said to that.

In Fair’s words: “You’re crazy.”

But all of that, and more, has come to pass with Shadows Fall, a band sprung from the incredibly fertile heavy-metal scene in the bedrock of Massachusetts’ rock community. In the 10 years that Shadows Fall has been a band, it has taken its classic-metal-meets-hard-core sound nationwide, honing the song craft with each album and tightening the live shows with each tour.

The typically heavy traveling Shadows Fall is only doing one round of shows this year before heading into the studio to commence work on its first album for Atlantic, which inked a deal with the band earlier this year once the group’s contract with independent Century Media records expired.

Shadows Fall spent the summer headlining the Strhess Tour, which has its final date Saturday at The Palladium, 261 Main St., Worcester. Marshaled by artist Derek Hess and now in its third year, the Strhess Tour also has Vision of Disorder, Poison the Well, It Dies Today, Suffocation, Zao, Leeway and If Hope Dies all coming to The Palladium finale. Hess himself is scheduled to be there, and those holding tickets for Sunday’s Locobazooka concert at the Tweeter Center can use those to get into the Strhess Tour show as well.

In clearing the deck as it enters its second decade, Shadows Fall put together “Fall Out From The War,” a companion piece of sorts to 2004’s Grammy-nominated “The War Within.” “Fallout” took some of the leftover ideas from “The War Within” and developed them into six new songs, the best of the bunch being “In Effigy.” “Fallout” also includes some rarities that had previously only found their way onto Japanese releases. The band released three cover tunes, Leeway’s “Mark of the Squealer,” Only Living Witness’ “December,” and Dangerous Toys’ “Teasin’, Pleasin’,” with Dangerous Toys singer Jason McMaster joining in on the recording.

And just to show how far Fair, guitarists Jonathan Donais and Matt Bachand, bass player Paul Romanko, and drummer Jason Bittner have come in terms of bringing a distinctive sound to the newest wave of American heavy metal, Shadows Fall re-recorded two of its old songs, including “Deadworld,” a song that was part of the band’s demo package to Century Media and conceived before Bittner was playing drums with the band.

Fair pointed out how Massachusetts may have the most thriving metal scene in the country, but none of the bands making it big out of the Bay State sound all that much alike.

“Massachusetts always had an open-minded scene. When I was growing up there was a lot of variety at the shows I went to. I could see a grind-core band playing with a punk rock band, and that led to all the weird mixtures in the music me and my friends wanted to make,” Fair said. “There is no Massachusetts sound, like there was a Seattle sound. There are just a bunch of great bands, and a lot of support. We’ve been friends with Killswitch Engage and Converge from the start, and we all try to help each other out.”

While on Century Media, Shadows Fall released a string of excellent albums, each one progressively better at fusing the trash and melodicism duking it out in he band’s collective conscience. The band twice appeared on Ozzfest, moving from the side stage to the main stage in 2004. Along the way, Shadows Fall sold a couple of hundred thousand copies of its albums, and Fair said that gave the group some leverage in keeping creative control in moving over to Atlantic, much like the way Shadows Fall’s peers in Lamb of God kept its sound intact when it moved over to Epic Records. In other words, the big record companies are coming to realize that metal has its core audience in place, so it’s not like the companies have to do a hard sell to break the bands into the spotlight.

“We clawed our way up the hard way, so we appreciate all the small successes we’ve had along the way,” Fair said. “In going with Atlantic, they seemed most interested in working with us in the way we are used to. They seemed to want to take a chance on a career band. We’ve proven that we can go on big tours and sell hundreds of thousands of records on our own through an independent record label.”

Fair, who has expanded his vocal range over the years, said Shadows Fall will challenge itself in the studio, but not alter the basic sound of the band, which is a hodgepodge of influences to begin with.

“We’re five very different people. There’s a dynamic there that can cause conflicts, but is also responsible for our success,” Fair said.

“If you listened to all of our iPods you’d think we were the most schizophrenic band. But if all of us listened to thrash metal all the time, we’d write the same kind of song all the time. Instead we get our ideas from all over the place. I may get an idea listening to a reggae song. It won’t sound like the reggae song, but makes me think about how to deliver a line.”

While it is unusual for Shadows Fall to spend less than 10 months on the road, Fair said that the band wanted to get cracking on the new album to avoid a long delay between releases.

There’s also talk about releasing new recordings by Fair’s old band Overcast, but that is tangled in business limbo as Overcast now has members in Killswitch Engage and Seemless as well as Shadows Fall, so agreements need to be hammered out among the three different record labels representing the Overcast members.

“We totally ignored the business side of it,” Fair said. “It was classic Overcast.”

Good to see the Mass. metal guys growing without necessarily growing up.

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Alice in Chains and Buckcherry lead the pack of bands playing Sunday at Locobazooka, the locally bred music fest being held for the first time at the Tweeter Center in Mansfield.

Locobazooka tickets are also good for admission to this weekend’s shows at The Lucky Dog Music Hall, 89 Green St., Worcester, where Tool tribute band Schism plays tomorrow and Clear the Way and Deep Six are on Saturday.

The Tweeter also has perennial favorite Jimmy Buffett there tonight and Saturday, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young together again on Wednesday.

Wreckoning is back in action with new drummer Eric Simpson. The band plays Saturday at Ralph’s Chadwick Square Diner, 148 Grove St., Worcester.

Standard Deviation tops the bill Saturday at The English Club, 29 Camp St., Worcester. Hard Drive plays tomorrow at Kas-Bah on Route 20 in Worcester.

The David Munnelly Band from Ireland is at The Hibernian Cultural Center, 19 Temple St., Worcester, on Saturday for an 8 p.m. concert.

Valerie and Walter Crockett play for free tonight at Elm Park in Worcester.

Surf and rockabilly fans have it made in the shade Monday as SPF4 and Preston Wayne join Jason James at his weekly gig at The Lucky Dog.

Scott McLennan can be reached at tgmusic1@yahoo.com.